To those not familiar with the idea of tropes, get thee to
TV Tropes, which covers far more than TV.
If I were to list the main subversions of tropes I prefer to play with, I'd include the following:
Cultures instead of "races" Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies does a good job of this. As with aliens in SF, I'm a firm believer that if your "race" is simply humans with a cultural quirk, just make them human. A while back (maybe on the old board) I explored how to do stock fantasy races as human cultures. If I can't find it, I might rewrite it.
Traditional magic instead of point-and-chant "spells" I've ranted about this before. As examples, check out
John Kim's essays on Magic in Roleplaying and the way magic works in
Pendragon (except 4th edition), Issaries'
HeroQuest,
Mage, and
Call of Cthulhu. I'm a big fan of magic as elaborate hours-long ritual, as many real-world traditions define it.
No always evil (or always good) races/cultures/countries In real life, no group of people has a monopoly on heroes or villains. An entire country or species of psychopaths simply isn't viable, and a country of saints stretches belief. As a corollary, I'm sick of "ugly/dark = bad, pretty/light = good". To combat the trend, I attempted to run a campaign where the heroes were civilized orcs (sort of), and humans were both antagonists and helpers.
I also wish I did more with non-European cultures, but I'm not as well versed in their history. I do try to play with religions and power structures, e.g. a monotheist theocracy blending elements of the Abrahamic religions.
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